Former director accused of stealing $15K from Larimer County Child Advocacy Center

May 17, 2013

Laura Hunt

Written by

The former director of the Larimer County Child Advocacy Center has been arrested and accused of stealing nearly $15,000 from the Fort Collins-based nonprofit.

Laura Hunt, 48, turned herself into the Larimer County Jail on Thursday and was booked and released. She faces a single count of felony theft.

According to prosecutors, Hunt improperly used more than $11,000 of the nonprofit’s money to pay health, dental and life insurance premiums for her family, and nearly $2,000 for personal cellphone bills. She’s also accused of taking $2,000 more by overcharging travel expenses for a conference and receiving an improper reimbursement for expenses for a second conference, prosecutors said.

Hunt joined the Child Advocacy Center as director in 2002 and left last year. The thefts are alleged by prosecutors to have occurred from 2009 until she left in mid-2012.

The case is being prosecuted by the Weld County District Attorney’s Office because a member of the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office sits on the nonprofit’s board of directors, as do Fort Collins and Loveland police officers.

The Child Advocacy Center works with children who have been sexually abused or witnessed a crime or abuse in a number of ways, from victim advocacy to conducting forensic interviews to be used in prosecuting perpetrators.

Though the name includes “Larimer County,” the organization receives no county payment for services aside from occasional Victim’s Compensation funding, which cannot be used for preventive programs but rather only for directly aiding victims. It receives no payment from government agencies or law enforcement, to maintain neutrality in the case of an investigation.